Researchers find reason behind childhood obesity

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Obesity is the root cause of many lifestyle diseases that are leading to preventable deaths in US. In the past four decades, obesity rates in the US have soared, and kids aged six to 11 have been hit the hardest.

A new research has suggested that even a heartier appetite can lead your kids to obesity.

According to the experts, weight gain is associated to two key aspects of appetite: lower satiety responsiveness – a reduced urge to eat in response to internal ‘fullness’ signals and secondly higher food responsiveness.

The study found that children with a heartier appetite grew more rapidly up to age 15 months. But at the same time this appetite potentially put these infants at increased obesity risk.

Lead author Jane Wardle says, “These findings are extremely powerful because we were comparing children of the same age and same sex growing up in the same family in order to reveal the role that appetite plays in infant growth,”

Wardle is professor at Health Behaviour Research Centre at University College London.

Experts strictly recommend the parents to be extra conscious as their baby grows. Parents need to be alert for their wards’ tendencies to be somewhat over-responsive to food cues in the environment, or somewhat unresponsive to fullness.